Daily Archives: December 8, 2025

Salvation History: a Play told in three acts

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I love the readings that are chosen for this celebration. I am convinced that all of Scripture is a single narrative that weaves and wanders its way through people and history to tell us a single story:  “God desires that all be saved” (1 Tim 2:4) These readings invite us to step back and look at the entire story of salvation from the first pages of Genesis, through the great hymn of grace in Ephesians, all the way to the quiet home in Nazareth where the angel Gabriel greets Mary. These three readings trace an arc through salvation history and reveal that God’s plan to save us has always centered on a woman, her Son, and the triumph of grace. It is like a grand, universal play written in three acts:

  • Genesis: The Wound and the Promise
  • Ephesians: The Plan from the Beginning
  • Luke: Grace Meets Freedom

Genesis: The Wound and the Promise

Our first reading from Genesis takes us to one of the saddest moments in Scripture: Adam and Eve hiding from God after the Fall.  Sin has entered the world. Fear has replaced intimacy. Trust has been broken. And yet God’s first response to human sin is not to abandon us, but to promise a Redeemer.

In Genesis 3:15 the Lord says to the serpent: “I will put enmity between you and the woman,
 and between your offspring and hers.” This single verse, called the Protoevangelium – the “first Gospel,” is like a distant star at the edge of salvation history. It points forward to a woman who will be the enemy of the serpent, not his partner; a woman whose child will not fall but will crush the power of evil.

The early Christians saw in this promise the beginning of Mary’s story. Eve’s disobedience brought the Fall; Mary’s obedience opened the door for the Savior.  Eve listened to the serpent; Mary heard and trusted the voice of God.

For Mary to stand in perfect opposition to the serpent she must be free, from the very first moment, from the wound and burden of sin. Genesis shows us the problem and announces the promise. The Immaculate Conception is the first precursor to the fulfillment of God’s desire that all be saved.

Ephesians: The Plan from the Beginning

Our second reading from Ephesians tells us that God’s plan of salvation is not something He invented after the Fall. St. Paul proclaims: “He chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and without blemish before him.” Think about that. Before the world was made… before Adam and Eve walked in the garden… before there was sin… God intended to raise us up in Christ. Wow!

And in that eternal plan, God prepared one human person in a singular way: Mary, the woman who would freely bear His Son. The Church teaches that Mary was saved by Christ, as we are saved, as we depend wholly and solely on Jesus. But Mary was saved in a unique way. Christ’s saving grace reached into the very moment of her conception, preserving her from original sin so that she could be a wholly free, completely loving participant in the Incarnation. The moment in salvation history where God so loved the world, He sent his only Son into the world as one of us.

Ephesians shows us that grace is not random.  Grace flows from a plan “before the foundation of the world.”  And Mary is the singularity in the arc of that plan.

Luke:  Grace Meets Freedom

And then, in the Gospel, we see that plan come to the full. The angel Gabriel enters the quiet of Nazareth and speaks a word spoken to no one else in Scripture: “Hail, full of grace.” This was not meant as a simple compliment. It is an acknowledgment and description of who she is. Who she is! Grace is not something that occasionally visits Mary; it is her whole being. Her very life is like she feasted on the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden. Her roots are the deep foundations of grace, her branches and leaves are her graced interactions with the world. “Blessed is the fruit of your womb.” She is full of grace and because of that she is completely free. When Gabriel asks her to become the Mother of the Messiah, Mary is able to give a free, unforced, wholehearted yes: “May it be done to me according to your word.”

This is the moment that Genesis foresaw. This is the moment that Ephesians anticipated. This is the moment when the Word becomes flesh because a young woman, prepared by grace, freely embraced her vocation.

What has been revealed in these readings?

This celebration and these readings are a wonderful source for our ongoing reflection about our lives here in the Season of Advent. 

We can be assured that God’s grace always comes first.  Before we act, before we choose, God is already at work preparing our hearts. The Immaculate Conception is the great sign that God’s grace precedes and surrounds all our efforts. Are we attentive to that already and always present grace? Are we willing to choose grace and let it form us as a person of faith?

In these readings, Mary shows us what redeemed humanity looks like. Where sin has wounded us, Mary enables us to imagine what healing looks like. Where fear paralyzes us, Mary shows us what trust looks like. She is the fulfillment of the promise of what God desires to do in us and for us.

All this and more, but especially Mary’s “yes”, is the pattern of Christian life. We may not encounter an angel, but each day the Lord asks us:  Will you trust me?  Will you let my grace work in you?  Will you say yes to the plan I have prepared for your life?

Perhaps the “big take-away,” Mary’s life teaches us that holiness begins not with perfection, but with availability and a heart open to God.

It is a lot to think about and reflect upon, but I hope that this Advent you take time to be available to the Lord with an open heart inspired by the life and gift of Mary, Mother of God.

Amen.

Image credit: Catholic News Service | Immaculate Conception | CC-BY

A History: The Immaculate Conception

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It’s important to understand what the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception is and what it is not. Some people think the term refers to Christ’s conception in Mary’s womb without the intervention of a human father; but that is the Virgin Birth. Others think the Immaculate Conception means Mary was conceived “by the power of the Holy Spirit,” in the way Jesus was, but that, too, is incorrect. The Immaculate Conception means that Mary, whose conception was brought about the normal way, was conceived without original sin or its stain—that’s what “immaculate” means: without stain. The essence of original sin consists in the deprivation of sanctifying grace, and its stain is a corrupt nature. Mary was preserved from these defects by God’s grace; from the first instant of her existence she was in the state of sanctifying grace and was free from the corrupt nature original sin brings.

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In the narrative flow

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This coming Sunday is the 3rd Sunday in Advent, lectionary cycle A, and again John the Baptist features prominently in the gospel text. Where last week we encountered him as the herald of the Messiah, this week John has been arrested and is jailed. Before moving into the study, let’s consider where this story fits into the narrative flow of Matthew’s gospel – there has been a lot that has happened in the narrative flow between the two Sunday gospel readings.

A key phrase in the first verse of the gospel reading is the expression “works of the Messiah” (Mt 11:2). That forms an all encompassing summary of what Jesus has been doing in Matthew chapters 5–10. Along the way Jesus’ acts and teachings provoke different responses from different groups. These responses, most of which consist of misunderstanding if not outright rejection, are examined in chapters 11–12, and explained in the parables of chapter 13. Further examples of the response to Jesus will occur in chapters 14–16, until the true response is found in Peter’s confession in 16:13–20, which will bring the second main part of Matthew’s Gospel to its climax. This is the thread which runs through these chapters. Through them we are led from a view of Jesus as others saw him to the true confession of him as Messiah which eluded most of his contemporaries, conditioned as they were by their own assumptions or some inadequate ideas of the nature of the promised Messiah.

More immediately, this passage marks a transition. “When Jesus finished giving these commands to his twelve disciples, he went away from that place to teach and to preach in their towns” (Mt 11:1).  With this one verse, Matthew signals the end of the missionary discourse (Mt 10) in 11:1 with nothing said about the disciples’ actual mission or their return (as in Luke 9). The spotlight remains on Jesus as he continues his work. The themes of unbelief and rejection that were so prominent in the missionary discourse are continued, but we are given more information about Jesus’ identity as the Messiah (11:1–6), the Wisdom of God (11:25–30), and the Servant of God (12:15–21) in the coming gospels.

That’s the context of the narrative flow, but this passage also has a liturgical context in its use as the Gospel of the 3rd Sunday in Advent, Gaudete Sunday. On the 2nd Sunday of Advent, our Gospel reading presented the preaching of John the Baptist. Near the end of that reading, Matthew portrays John, not only as a prophet, but as a forerunner to Jesus. John is quoted as speaking about “the one who is coming after me,” who “is mightier than I” (3:11), which makes that selection especially appropriate for Advent.  On the 3rd Sunday of Advent this year, we read the episode in which John, already in prison, sends some of his disciples to ask Jesus, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another?” (11:3). Jesus does not respond directly, but simply points out that he is doing the things Isaiah mentions in describing a time when people will experience God’s glory and splendor, restoration and salvation (alluding to Isa 35:1-6, the 3rd Advent Sunday’s first reading). It is this accent, in anticipation of its joyous fulfillment that gives Gaudete Sunday its focus.

In either its scriptural or liturgical focus, a key point is that if both prophet and Messiah have appeared, then their joint call to repentance (recall 3:2; 4:17) must be urgently heeded – be it John’s message unremittingly austere or Jesus also preaching the joy of the kingdom (11:16–19).

Image credit: Christ Presenting the Keys to Saint Peter, c. 1636-40, by Nicholas Poussin, Public Domain